Re: Subtext and Sturgeon -- Alternative Quadrant Message Board

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4 ]

Subject: Re: Subtext and Sturgeon

Author:
Jane

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 15:51:40 04/30/01 Mon
In reply to: sarahc 's message, "Re: Subtext and Sturgeon" on 10:53:18 04/30/01 Mon

I had a quick search to see if I could find a good URL for Sturgeon and his work. I found a short article, with the focus on �The World Well Lost� at http://village.fortunecity.com/montgomery/459/f990618.htm. However I�m now sitting here with a big frown on my face. The article states that Sturgeon was straight, however I know I�ve read differently elsewhere � I�m racking my brains to remember where and struggling with the uncomfortable suspicion that maybe the writer was just assuming a straight man wouldn�t have written a story like �The World Well Lost�, and certainly not back in the 1950�s. It might be best if people were to ignore the first half of my initial post.

========================================

To summarise �The World Well Lost�.

Humanity has been spreading out through space and made alliances with many other species, however there is one planet, Dirbanu, that after a promising initial contact has subsequently refused to have any dealings with Earth. This changes when a spaceship with two occupants arrives from the planet. The two aliens are clearly in love but give no explanation of why they are there. Then a message from Dirbanu arrives stating the two are criminals and must be extradited. Seeing this as a chance to establish diplomatic relationships with Dirbanu a spaceship is dispatched to return the fugitives.

The spaceship crew consists of two men, a rather unpleasant captain, and a mate who is big, withdrawn and vastly more intelligent than the captain. It is the mate who discovers (with the aid of telepathy and drawings) the crime the fugitives are guilty of. Despite minor differences in things such as height, the alien lovers are both male. On Dirbanu males and females are drastically different (e.g. orders of magnitude in terms of size) and their taboos against homosexuality are correspondingly extreme. Furthermore, to Dirbanu eyes human men and women look identical and, while the Dirbanu may rational understand that there are two different sexes on Earth, they cannot get over the instinctive feeling that humans are all homosexual. Hence the refusal to deal with Earth.

The mate helps the alien lovers to escape in a capsule and fakes their death. The captain is initially angry when he finds out but calms down once the Dirbanu authorities are fooled (from a distance � they don�t want humans getting any closer to their planet than necessary). The captain�s attitude is one of rampant homophobia to the point of sympathising with Dirbanu. However in the last couple of paragraphs it is made clear (if you haven�t picked up on the clues already) that the mate is himself gay, and secretly in live with the captain.

=======================================

As I said before, I think a planet like Dirbanu would have presented a wonderful diplomatic challenge for Picard.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]